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Wednesday, September 22, 2010

When I first tried out Facebook (dont remember when), the invitations and pokes overwhelmed me and I soon got tired of them. So then I just went back to the only SNS (social networking site) which was popular in India - Orkut. But thats beside the point of this post. Recently, in Jan I again revived my dead account, and now am addicted to it. Again this is not what this post is all about. :). Having observed most of my friends on it, my mind went about classifying the various traits of other fb addicts... And this is what the post is all about :) But before going further few warnings –

The post is very long so beware

Have a lump of jaggery with you as the post may leave a bitter taster in your mouth.

If reading a game you think I wrote it based on your behavior, rest assured you are not alone doing that as there are others too having similar trait probably differing in its degree and lot of us play multiple games at the same time – the multi-taskers! :P

So let the games begin -

1. The Guy Gangs Game

This is one of the games that most guys play within their group. In this game, there will be one innocent protagonist, who gives a very innocent status. This status may be completely innocent or at most it may have one innocent loophole. The next important character in this game is the Devil. He would be there waiting for this chance alone and the moment this innocent status gets posted, a sarcastic comment follows. This will be followed by a like on his comment, then a hot reply, another comment and pitched war between these guys start putting all their past, present and future dirty linen on the FB domain. The game usually ends, when the protagonist accepts defeat or deletes this post. But beware deleting may produce a child post on the devil's post which would take the war to the next level.

Although gals are never far-behind in this game, but they cannot match the low-blows that happen here. It does get real dirty here. But guys are guys. They have seen worse happening to them, caused by these same devils and yet they remain each other's best buddies.

2. The Status Game

The game is very simple. Just ensure you post a minimum of one status every hour. This includes the sleeping time as well. The status is not important here. Only the posting is important. It is said that career is not everything, and people need to take time to smell the flowers. Well this tribe of fb addicts believes in taking this adage one step further. Truly, they are one step above most other people in the ladder of spirituality! :P. But the game doesn't end here. The guy/gal will have some dedicated set of followers who find time to comment or like it. The beauty of this game is that it never ends even if the followers get tired of it.

3. The Calendar Game

This tribe is here to help the other addicts. They are the Good Samaritans here. They ensure that other addicts know what time of the day it is with good morning, zzzz, had a heavy lunch kind of messages.. They also give the day it is. For example, if as an addict you forget what day it is, just see their status - it will go like 2 days to Friday, Monday morning blues, and its weekend. The only catch here, sometime you may not be able to differentiate Saturdays and Sundays. They can take this as feedback in improving their humanitarian work.

4. The Motivation Game

This is another form of good Samaritans here. They are the enlightened souls who would post new quotes, wisdom statements, a song to listen every day, importance of friends, relationships... get the drift. Reading this will give you enough motivation to face all problems in life. The alternative to this would be to pick up a self-help book from a bookstore which is down-right boring. Again they are here to help people see the light! :) The light is too bright for you too see any shadows till far-far away.

5. The Game of Intrigue

This is mostly played by guys. I don't know why but this tribe has an uncanny ability to bewilder most of the mortal world. They leave you thinking, wondering, but even if you ask for an explanation, you get another intriguing comment. And you leave it at that as now you don't want to be seen as fool twice by other addicts at large. But for each tribe there are followers who simply like them even if they don't understand. Intriguing followers!

6. The Knowledge Game

This game is again mostly played by guys. The objective of this game is to post very useful links related to topics such as global warming, whether the world will face double-dip recession, the latest gadgets, or on the international events. They are the people for whom tons of academicians work publishing articles in journals, writing papers, etc. Their posts can give you sleepless nights if you try to read those articles unless you share the same genes ;)

7. The Ideology Game

This is one of the most dangerous games. Their numbers are less at this moment. But their posts sprout the ideologies they believe in and in which they fanatically follow. Their will be followers too but most likely they may not be fanatic. The goal of this game is to convert the moderate followers into fanatics. The ideology can take many forms. It can be your organization, your work, in some case religion too. The Techie game can be considered as a subset of this game where the fb user posts statuses based on passion for a technology.

8. The Followers Game

This game has no protagonists. The followers of most tribes fall in this category. You can easily identify them, by seeing their comments littered over most of your friend's post. They just like things and comment. Their comments are also short two words comments like - "nice one", "good one" ,"ROFL","LOL","cool" as if they are in a hurry. But they are the poor souls, the sheep who are confused of what facebook is all about. So they go about liking and commenting on most things that published on facebook. Spare a thought for them...

9. The Enjoy-Simple-Things Game

This is a tribe for whom we can learn how to appreciate life. They will have statuses like "Enjoying home made daal-khichdi" or "Shopped for groceries, bought food, cooked it and now afternoon siesta", "Listening to blaring music and working today (Saturday)". By posting it on facebook, they are showing the way to live life appreciating little things which other mortals forget about it.

10. The Fun Game

This tribe are very serious about being on facebook. They seriously want to have fun on facebook. So they will use their wit to produce some really funny-liners, or comments etc. They will have lengthy discussions on facebook with apparently no theme in the entire discussion. Sometime the statuses are posted so as to start having fun. The discussion in all cases veer towards some topic that is not even remotely related to the status. When you read such statuses, beware of reading the comments. It may be injurious to your mental health.

11. The Smiling-Photo Game

Another simple game! You just have to take a snap yourself in as many ways as possible. It doesn't matter if you are alone or with other people who as well will be having a wider grin. The only catch is you need to be smiling always. The main idea is to ensure that people remember your smile disregarding everything else in the picture. I am one already signed up for this game so I recommend everyone to follow ;)

12. The Shared-Video GameBelieve the simplest game of all. You just share a video that was shared by someone else and thats it. You don't even have to watch it. The guy who has posted liked it and he would at least be your friend or your friend's friend. The logic goes something like this - You like you friend's choices and your friend will also like his friend's choices, which obviously means you like your friend's friend's choices. So there you go. And you share. This is to share fun so that more people like it, more people will smile after seeing that and thus what you have done is spreading smiles, which is a not a very bad thing to do.

13. The Aww-so-Cute Game

This is mostly played by gals and these gal's guy friends. The objective is to have as many awww, so cute comments and likes as possible. Mostly the subject here will be a video with a small kid, a teddy bear, teddy bear playing with kid (oops vice versa), crying kid, laughing kid, mom 'n' kid, a sad love story, a beautiful love story, etc. The main aim is to enhance the cuteness/awwness of the video, pic by having as many likes/comments possible.

Apart from this there are other games which most of you know which create known tribes such as the mafias, the farmers, people who check their day's future with numerous fortune-tellers( obviously one will be true and for the few unlucky ones none will be true so they will go to more fortune-tellers :D), finding the best friends based on likes and comments (the first game I talked about – the devil became the innocent guy's best friends J) , finding love story of their life from rom-coms and dreaming about it, finding most matching girl/boy-friends. And then there are some stray sheep, fuel-tank, goat, etc. and which will leave you scratching your head thinking about what to do with it. But the best happened recently when I saw a message in fb that 72% of your friends are farmers an you can be one too. Was just wondering, if so many wanted to be farmers, why are they on facebook?

PS: I see lot of daggers coming out, if you are still reading – you can use those in the comment section ;) Btw - no hard feelings - just plain thoughts :)

Saturday, September 11, 2010

After a loooooooooong time, somehow my mind stirred and brought out something from its stables something better than rubbish ramblings….A note of thanks to all the people who did push me to write something during my hibernation….

The Heart – A Tyrant

Dodging and darting around

Through life's uncertainties

He was going head-on

Challenging life as it came on

Yes he was going fast

As fast as he dreamt of going

He was proud of that for

Very few lived their dream

Yes he enjoyed the challenge

And his sucesses

Yet sometimes his heart cried,

Dampening his soaring spirits

He ignored, yet it haunted him

For the heart remained

Always in agony, Always in pain

Howling all night till it slept

Finding a mate thought he

Would appease his heart

Another howl and a secret tear later

He dropped the idea

The hollowness rang louder

Like a virus multiplying

And spreading the pain

Until he decided to listen

Yes the heart was saying something

A whisper was enough

For he became sad and afraid

Like everyone like him

The heart needed change

A new horse to ride

A new dream to chase

A new spark to begin a new fire

Fire that burns till eternity

Fire that consumes his self

A relentless fire

Burning him and his heart to ashes

To be the ashes was his heart's wish

For only through the ashes,

The Phoenix can rise and fly

The last flight to the Creator

As for him, his challenges

His enjoyment has to go

To sow the seeds of

Still undreamt dreams

For a new spark will ignite

A new un-thought passion

A passion he never had

A passion that would consume him

For a life later, the world

May forget his name

May forget all his deeds

But remember they will

His passion and his

Soaring Phoenix!

PS: Found a very convenient way to post today - Directly from MS-Word 2007! Thumbs up to Microsoft! :)